


Of Rituals and Runes

by mk_tortie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:32:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mk_tortie/pseuds/mk_tortie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedric isn't as dead as everyone thinks, and there's only one person who can help him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Rituals and Runes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hp_springsmut 2007.

His body was in front of him on the wet grass. It was cold, grey eyes open and staring, and all Cedric could do was gaze at it – him –  _me!_ – in horror. Slowly, he knelt down and touched his body’s lifeless cheek, then lifted his hand to his own warm face. 

Heart in his throat and hands shaking, he glanced behind him. Harry wouldn’t forget what he’d promised, surely? Somehow, however confused Cedric felt, he had known straight away that he was dead. Right now, as the only certainty he had, that thought wasn’t very comforting. But no, Harry hadn’t forgotten, he was running across the grass towards the Cup, the Portkey. Instinctively, Cedric grasped his body’s wrist.

Harry leapt for the Cup, and soon both boys – or all three – were gone.

~

‘Harry!’

Cedric’s voice was just one of many amongst the clamour that greeted their reappearance at Hogwarts. He hauled himself upright and grabbed Harry’s shoulder, meaning to get the other boy’s attention. His fingers slipped off. He tried again, but Harry was being led away by Mad Eye, and everyone else  _his parents, too,_  was focused on his body.

 _They couldn’t see him._

‘Mum? Dad?’ Cedric tried desperately, again trying (and failing) to get a grip on someone, anyone, just to prove he hadn’t imagined himself, that he wasn’t really a dead body on the floor.

It was no use.

Despite his best efforts, teachers herded the shocked students away, Dumbledore and his parents took his body, and Cedric was left all alone next to the maze on the Quidditch pitch. He slumped to the floor in despair, burying his head in his hands. A light breeze ruffled his hair, somehow making him feel even more alone; all he could hear was the whispering of the leaves in the maze of hedges. What on earth could he do now? Unseen and unheard, was he destined to spend his life wandering Hogwarts, alone? He was on the verge of tears when he heard a rough, deep voice from behind him.

‘Stand up, young man.’

Cedric shot to his feet and whipped his head round to where the voice had come from. ‘Who is that? Where are you?’ 

But all he could see was the empty stands.

‘Turn around.’ 

An old man stepped out of the maze, his long black robes strangely still in the gentle wind. For a moment, Cedric thought it was Dumbledore, and his shoulders drooped in relief, before it struck him that this man was old, far older than even the Headmaster. His voice creaked like a hinge in need of oiling, and even from a distance, Cedric could see that his face was not so much creased as folded with age. 

‘Who are you?’ Confusion and fear turned his voice into an embarrassing squeak, and Cedric blushed.

‘Who  _I_  am is unimportant,’ the old man said, ‘since you will never see me again, and I have been given far too many names to recite them all now. Indeed, I have little time, Cedric Diggory, and much to say. Come closer, and listen carefully.’

Cedric frowned, but stepped forward all the same. ‘How do you know  _my_  name? And if I’m dead, why am I… well, still here?’ 

The old man rolled his eyes and chuckled. ‘Perhaps, if you will allow me to explain, I can answer your questions and more. Cedric, you’re not dead.’

~

The library was empty. Cedric paced down the aisles, pulling books from the shelves at random and skimming the pages. Madam Pince would be horrified at the mess her shelves were in when she found them. Perhaps the thought that she would never find the culprit would have made Cedric laugh if he hadn’t been so desperate to find something, anything in the library that might help him.

He threw the last book to the floor in despair. It landed with a satisfying thump.

‘There’s  _got_  to be another way…’ he mumbled. His words seemed to bounce off the walls of the deserted library. The old man’s explanation ran over and over through his mind. 

‘ _Brave…_ ’

Well, brave was easy. Of course, Cedric had Hufflepuff friends whom  _he_  considered brave, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Brave meant he needed a Gryffindor. Someone who wasn’t going to run away at the sight of him, or as soon as he explained. His first thought had been Harry Potter, but then the old man had added further requirements.

‘ _A talent with runes, to properly prepare the ritual…_ ’

So a Gryffindor who did Ancient Runes. And if he wasn’t taking chances, he needed a Gryffindor who was bloody good at it, too. Well, that probably ruled out Harry; Potter seemed the type to prefer the more practical applications of magic. Cedric’s mind had begun to wander over who else he knew in Gryffindor, but he was drawing blanks. Most of the House had been pretty hostile towards him over the past few months, and he hadn’t shared a class with more than one or two of them in a couple of years. He knew names, but that wasn’t enough to know who might be able to help! 

  
‘… _and the knowledge of where to look for the incantations to pull you out of the Half-Life.’_

And the reason he was stuck in this ‘Half-Life’ was because Voldemort was too excited about what he was going to use Harry for to care about killing Cedric.  _He simply hadn’t cared enough to kill him properly_. The trouble was, Avada Kedavra needed emotion, hatred, to push someone completely out of the land of the living and into death. The worst part was that he could still touch things here, he could feel his pulse and his own warm skin, and yet nobody else even knew he was there. They all thought he was dead and gone and never coming back.

Merlin! What could he do? He could think of no one to help him, nowhere to turn, and the old man had left, never to return. There just had to be something, anything, somewhere in the library, that he could use to get out of this situation. But it could be years before he found the right thing; he’d only ever really used the sections of the library that everyone else did. He’d rushed here as soon as the old man had disappeared, and he hadn’t slept at all last night, searching the shelves. Now Cedric found himself wishing that he’d been more interested in the contents of the Restricted Section before now; maybe then he’d be able to find the ‘incantations’ or even something else to help! 

Unless, of course, he  _could_  find someone else who knew their way around the Hogwarts' huge library. Perhaps that meant that Harry could help him after all. He certainly had come up with some interesting ideas during the Tournament, and Cedric had heard rumours in previous years of things the Gryffindor and his friends had got up to. But no – Harry hadn’t been able to see him earlier, when they’d escaped from Voldemort.

‘ _The one who sees you will help you, the one who helps you will love you, and there is only one who can…’_

Leaving all the books messily on the floor in the aisle, Cedric sat down heavily at one of the tables and buried his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his hair. When he’d first seen that, he had thought that perhaps he should just go and wander about in the castle until it was obvious someone could see him. But then he’d stopped. What if the person who could see him turned out to be Snape? Or Draco Malfoy? Or any number of Slytherins whom Cedric could never trust further than he could levitate them. He wasn’t sure he could cope with the revelation that Snape was in love with him right now. Or possibly ever.

He couldn’t just sit here forever, though. For one thing, he didn’t really want to find out what would happen when someone tried to sit on the chair he was occupying – he was fairly sure they would go straight through him, and the thought of that made him shudder. It was getting late now, anyway, and there wouldn’t be anybody out in the halls other than Filch and the odd teacher. 

‘I’ll go to the Hufflepuff common room first, because I know they would stand by me, ‘brave’ or not,’ he announced decisively. Even if no-one could hear him, he was going to  _use_  his voice, just to prove to himself that he could. ‘And then Ravenclaw after that. Maybe Cho will be able to see me.’ The words left an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

~

Cedric spent his second lonely night in Hufflepuff. He tried the Common Room first, but that was no good. Then he worked his way through the bedrooms, even trying the first years. Nothing. Nobody in Hufflepuff could see him. Eventually, he made his way back to his own room, only to find that his bed had been stripped and all his things were gone. Miserably, he curled up on the bare mattress and stared at his housemates’ oblivious forms, trying not to think about what would happen if it turned out no-one at all could see him. Right now, he thought he could survive years of pretending he loved Cho, if only she could see him.

When he tried Ravenclaw the next day, however, nobody in could see him either, and Cedric couldn’t decide if the sight of a weeping Cho who didn’t know he was there made him want to weep or just beat down the wall in frustration. In a way, he was slightly relieved; he had been intending to break up with her once the tournament ended and he could do it as gently and as privately as possible. If she had been able to see him, he wasn’t sure he would have felt comfortable with breaking things off afterwards, and then he would be trapped with someone he knew he didn’t love. 

In any case, that left him with a choice between Gryffindor or Slytherin. Well, no choice at all, then. He simply had to hope that Potter _was_  the right person, or at least another of the older Gryffindors. If it turned out that Harry was in love with him… well, it’d be better than Snape or Malfoy. Cedric didn’t think he was gay, but he’d never experimented, either. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if his soulmate turned out to be a bloke. A sudden thought struck him and he groaned. What if the person who could see him turned out to be a first year? He would have to wait  _years_  before they’d know what to do.

When he got there, he realised just how late it was when he had to wait for ages for the portrait to even open. The sight of Fred and George Weasley leaving made him raise an eyebrow as he stepped through the door before it swung shut again, although the pang of disappointment in his chest surprised him; the thought had crossed his mind that the twins quite possibly knew their way around the library, and would have the guts to help. He’d known them for years, anyway, although there had never been much love lost between them. And he didn’t find them in the least bit attractive – red hair had never been his thing. In any case, Cedric found their attitude to life altogether frustrating.

He was beginning to wonder if whoever he was looking for was even at Hogwarts. How on earth was he going to find them if they could be anywhere in the whole of the Wizarding World? 

Cedric tried to push the frightening thoughts out of his mind, and quickly glanced around the Gryffindor common room. He’d never been in here before, and the décor was just so fitting with Potter and his friends that Cedric suddenly understood how a house that was so competitive could be so close-knit. At the moment, though, the common room appeared to be empty. Either the Gryffindors were having an early night (and he doubted that – he’d heard the rumours, just like everyone else), or it was much later than he had thought. He slumped down into an armchair by the fireplace and gazed into the glowing ashes. Half asleep, he couldn’t help but begin to replay the other day in his mind - a flash of green light and the startling sensation of no longer being alive… his cold body on the ground… the old man and his cryptic instructions… Cho, crying into her friend’s shoulder… the old man… Harry… Cho… Finally, out of the anger and the frustration and the despair, he felt tears from in his own eyes and he buried his head in his hands, trying desperately not to cry. 

The touch of a hand on his shoulder nearly gave him a heart attack.

‘Are you alright?’

Lifting his head, Cedric twisted around, his eyes wide in shock and his heart beating hopefully in his throat. A girl stood next to his armchair, concern in her brown eyes. He blinked as he recognised her as one of Harry’s friends – Hermione something? Was that her name?

As Cedric lifted his head, Hermione’s eyes narrowed. ‘Cedric?’ she whispered in disbelief. ‘But Voldemort…’

‘Killed me, yes.’ Cedric’s voice was low. ‘You can see me?’ Suddenly something clicked into place for him. Some of the rumours of things Harry had done had always surprised Cedric, because Potter seemed such an action-orientated person, not given to looking before leaping. But of course he didn’t do those things on his own! The two friends he always hung around with had to be the reason, and he guessed that it had to be this girl who was the brains behind the outfit, because if she could see him then that meant she had to fulfil all the old man’s requirements. 

He realised that she’d said something.

‘You’re not a ghost, are you?’ she asked matter-of-factly. Cedric shook his head. ‘No – I’m…’ 

‘But you asked if I could see you – can’t anyone else?’ she cut in, frowning in thought. 

Cedric shook his head again, and tried to explain. ‘No, but I…’

‘But why are you here at all, if you’re not a ghost? Oh, if only I could get to the library!’ 

As hopeful as Cedric was now feeling, Hermione’s constant interruptions were beginning to make him feel a little bit irritated. ‘I can explain, if you’ll listen?’ he said shortly.  _Wait, if she’s the one who can help then I can’t push her away_ , he told himself, and tried hard to stop feeling frustrated. 

The look of remorse on her face helped. ‘Sit down,’ he told her, gesturing at the other armchair by the fire. ‘It’s a bit of a long story…’

Of course, the beginning part of the tale she had heard a bit from Harry, but she still looked like she was going to cry when he told her what had happened from his perspective. She leaned in closer when he began to describe the old man, one eyebrow raising when Cedric described the conditions he had laid out. He left out the part about being in love with him. He was sure that the old man was wrong about that, anyway – what chance had Hermione had to fall for him, when he’d never even spoken to her before?

When Cedric had finished, she sat back in her chair and looked at him for a moment.

‘So, I’m the only one who can help you?’ she asked. He nodded, unsure what else he could say. Hermione gazed into the dying embers of the fire for a moment, deep in thought. 

Finally, she took a deep breath and looked up at him decisively. ‘Meet me here after breakfast. There’s no classes so I can spend the day in the library.’

A grateful smile spread across his face and he leaned forward, finally feeling truly hopeful. ‘I don’t know how to thank you…’

She cut him off. ‘Don’t thank me yet – I don’t know if I’ll be able to find anything. But if I’m the only one who can help, I’d better give it a go!’

~

They had been in the library for days, and Cedric was feeling increasingly dejected. The pile of books that Hermione had selected as possibilities had only gone down a tiny amount, and if Ron and Cedric spoke now, they might have found they had something in common – exasperation with Hermione’s overly thorough research. Lack of sleep wasn’t helping his mood at all. Hermione had transfigured a cushion into a Muggle thing called a ‘sleeping bag’, and it wasn’t in the least bit comfortable. He’d tried a different corner of the library for the last four nights, and none of them were any better. Still, he wasn’t half as miserable as he had been when he was completely alone. At least he had a bit of company, as well as a good deal of hope. He couldn’t deny that her drive to find a solution for his problem helped to lift his mood, as well – he wasn’t sure if it was enthusiasm or just plain stubbornness, but having someone try so hard to help was comforting. 

Sometimes Cedric wondered just how long it was going to be before he could do anything more than hope, though. He grimaced at the huge pile of books. ‘Surely there’s not going to be anything in this?’ he asked, frustrated, pointing at a thick, dusty volume entitled _Medievalle Torture Charmes and their Yses._  Hermione glanced up from the hefty book she was balancing in her lap. ‘We don’t know who first discovered this ritual! Half-killing someone and then bringing them back again could very well derive from the Middle Ages!’ 

‘But it could just as easily come from Merlin’s time!’ he retorted. ‘Oh, this is  _hopeless_.’ He buried his head in his hands with a groan, knocking over a pile of books as he did so.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she exclaimed. ‘Some of these are very valuable!’ She leapt from her seat and started re-piling the books. He noticed that her hair stuck out from her face at all angles from where she had pushed it out of the way. It looked like a kind of messy brown halo. 

‘Aren’t you going to help? I’m not doing this for me, you know!’ she said irritably, her hands on her hips as she checked that the books weren’t going to fall off again.

‘It could take us days to go through all of this, though!’ he replied, annoyance now beginning to show in his own voice. ‘You have to leave soon. Isn’t there any way we can narrow these down?’

She glared at him. ‘If you don’t want my help, you don’t have to have it.’ With that, she turned and marched from the library. He thought he heard her mutter as she left. ‘Boys… they’re all the same.’

Cedric mutely watched her leave, his irritation quickly turning to remorse. Despairingly, he turned to face the heap of books again. Tiredly rubbing his temples, he scanned the pile, trying to work out which one to try next. At that moment, a title caught his eye:  _The Runic Renewals of Oswald the Unfortunate_. Flicking through the pages, he stopped randomly in the middle, and read a paragraph.

His heart rate sped up when he realised what he was reading. Grabbing the book, he sprinted out of the library, hoping he would catch up with Hermione before she disappeared. He spotted her just as she stepped onto one of the moving staircases, and with an extra spurt of speed, managed to leap on after her.

‘Hermione, wait,’ he panted. ‘I’ve found it! It’s in here!’

‘Good for you,’ she said coldly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ She began to walk swiftly away from him up the steps, but he caught her arm.

‘I’m so sorry, Hermione,’ he said regretfully. ‘I do need your help, and it was wrong of me to question you – I would never have spotted this if you hadn’t got all those books!’

She raised one eyebrow at him, still feeling quite unwilling to help.

Cedric felt genuinely sorry, and it must have shown on his face, because her expression softened.

‘How are you so persuasive?’ she asked. She looked like she was about to grin, for all her irritable tone. 

‘I’m irresistible,’ Cedric replied, turning on the charm, and grinned at her. He hadn’t really thought about flirting with her up until now, but she was surprisingly good fun for such a bookworm. 

He took her hand, his sincere grey eyes meeting hers.. ‘Come back to the library,’ he said contritely. ‘I can’t work this out on my own.’

Releasing her, Cedric turned back down the stairs, hoping she would follow. He was surprised how relieved he felt when she did.

~

It had taken them nearly all night to work out what they needed to do for the ritual, especially with Hermione checking and double-checking every detail. Cedric had begun to feel quite impatient until she’d pointed out a paragraph right at the bottom of the yellowing page, detailing what would happen if the ritual went wrong. Cedric had paled, and stopped complaining.

As dawn approached and the first few rays of light began filtering through the library windows, Hermione sat back and rubbed at her eyes. ‘That’s it,’ she announced. ‘I’m sure it’s right.’

Cedric peered over her shoulder at the sheets of paper she’d been checking. There seemed to be a lot of them, all covered in her neat (but tiny) script. ‘It looks complicated,’ he said worriedly. ‘Are you absolutely certain that it’s right? I quite like my nose where it is, never mind any other parts…’

Hermione folded her arms. ‘Well, you check it if you don’t trust me, but if it goes wrong now it’s a problem with the ritual, not with my calculations!’ she muttered irritably. 

Cedric stopped trying to read what she’d written. ‘No, no, I trust you,’ he said, not wanting her to march off again. Surprisingly, he realised he really did trust her. ‘What do we have to do?’

She picked up the top sheet. ‘Well, first there’s a potion. That’s the most important part, but we have to get the runes right, too, or it won’t work. There’s some specifics with stirring and so on, but the basic ingredients should be fairly easy to get hold of, thank goodness.’ Her tone made Cedric wonder if it hadn’t been so easy to find the supplies for other potions, and vaguely remembered hearing some rumour about Polyjuice potion. There was definitely more to Hermione than just being Potter’s shadow.

He glanced down at her and realised she was frowning. ‘What, is there a problem?’ he asked.

‘I’m still not sure about the blood part,’ she answered doubtfully. 

Cedric sighed. ‘Remember what I said before? It’s nothing to be worried about.’

Hermione’s initial reaction to the ritual outlined in the book had been point-blank refusal.

‘I’m not doing anything that’s Dark Magic,’ she had insisted stubbornly.

It had taken Cedric quite some time to persuade her that it was the intention behind the magic, not any particular spell itself, which was dark. ‘What about  _Incendio_?’ he had asked, trying to prove his point. ‘You use that all the time, for lighting fires, but you could do some serious damage to someone with it,  _if you wanted to_.’

‘But of course I’d never do that!’ Hermione had objected. Then she realised what he meant. ‘Oh…’ 

Cedric gave a small smile. ‘The line is hard to draw between what’s Dark and what’s not, sometimes.’

She had returned to her calculations after that, but Cedric’s explanation had obviously stayed on her mind. Now, she looked up at him, evidently having come to a decision. ‘If you trust me, then I trust you,’ she said quietly. 

‘Thank you,’ Cedric said sincerely. 

She gave him a small smile and glanced back at her notes. ‘After that, there’s an incantation. That should be it, then. The potion’s the part that will take the longest – it says to stir for a quarter-phase. I think they mean a quarter of a month – so a week.’

‘A week?’ Cedric said, rather more loudly than he had intended. That meant it would be a week until he knew whether it worked or not. And he’d never worked on a potion for that long before! ‘Just how complicated is this?’

‘Oh, no harder than the Pol-,’ Hermione started, and then stopped herself. 

Cedric thought he knew what she had been going to say. ‘Polyjuice? So it was true, then?’

‘Yes, well…’ she stammered, but her blush gave her away. 

Cedric grinned. ‘Is everything else I’ve heard about you and Potter true, then?’

He was surprised when she scowled. ‘Don’t tell me you believed those ridiculous articles too?’ she asked grumpily. ‘Honestly, you can’t believe everything you read in the papers…’

Surprised, Cedric didn’t know what she meant until he remembered the interviews Rita Skeeter had published. ‘You know, I had completely forgotten about that,’ he said honestly. ‘I meant the other stuff – fighting dragons and breaking the Whomping Willow!’

Hermione huffed. ‘Of course I haven’t fought dragons – we had to help Hagrid pass his on to Ron’s brother before it was too big, and obviously there was the First Task – and the car crashing into the Whomping Willow was absolutely  _nothing_  to do with me, it was  _all_  Harry and Ron’s fault, I wasn’t even there, and – Oh!’ 

She broke off her diatribe, looking completely horrified.

‘What? What’s wrong?’ Cedric asked, his amused expression turning to worry.

‘I shouldn’t be telling you all of this! You’re a Prefect!’ The fear on her face made him laugh, which caused her to look even more scared. 

‘I’m hardly a Prefect at the moment, am I?’ he asked gently. ‘You’re the only one who can see me!’

Her face relaxed a bit, and he grinned at her. ‘Anyway, I’m hardly likely to go rushing off to Dumbledore as soon as I’m alive again, am I?’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t exactly be very grateful, would it?’

Hermione looked as if all of her illusions about Prefects had been shattered. Cedric decided it was high time they actually started on this potion, if it was going to take a week. By the sounds of things, there would be plenty of time for chatting later on.

~

Nightfall found them in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom with a magical fire burning merrily in a toilet bowl. Hermione’s spell had impressed Cedric, and it wasn’t for the first time that he wished he had his wand. Why on earth had he not picked it up when they had fled from Voldemort? 

Hermione was busy chalking symbols on the floor around the toilet they were using, occasionally stopping to tap them with her wand and mutter something under her breath. Whatever she was doing, Cedric fervently hoped that she really had worked everything out right. It had taken her quite some time to ascertain which runes were needed, and even longer to decide on their configuration. She’d started on it long before he had gone to collect the ingredients, and he’d got back hours ago. Actually, it had turned out to be rather a good thing that nobody could see him – it meant that he could sneak into the Potions classroom and take what they needed without fear of being discovered. 

Hermione obviously still had a fair amount to work out, and she worked in silence, carefully calculating angles and runic combinations. Finally, she looked up, her face pale in the light of Cedric’s  _Lumos_. 

‘If you’ve got everything ready, we can start,’ she said, her voice a little hesitant. Cedric held up the brass cauldron he had requisitioned from Snape’s dungeon. He had to admit, taking it had felt even better when he remembered his fear that it might be Snape who could see him. Filling it with water, Hermione placed it on the fire to heat, and began to sort through the ingredients Cedric had brought.

‘How good are you at Potions?’ she asked him. 

‘Well, I’m doing the NEWT course,’ he replied, a little put out at a Fourth Year questioning his ability.

‘Average to good, then,’ Hermione said matter-of-factly, either ignoring or not noticing Cedric’s expression. ‘You can chop and I’ll work on the potion, then.’

Cedric raised an eyebrow, but did as she asked. He couldn’t afford to annoy her, after all, but he thought it was a bit presumptuous when she hadn’t even taken her OWLs. 

~

As night turned to day and back to night again, Cedric began to realise that he had underestimated her. She really did know what she was doing, even if she was a bit of a perfectionist. At midday, he had forced her to get some sleep, reassuring her that he was perfectly capable of stirring clockwise every ten minutes. When she got back, her face was a little flushed.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow at her expression.

Hermione gave a small embarrassed laugh. ‘I got so distracted by all of this that I completely forgot that nobody in Gryffindor knew where I was… Parvati and Lavender have convinced everyone that I’ve got a secret lover. They were trying to get me to tell them who it was.’ Her smile faded and she frowned. ‘Actually, I don’t think Ron’s talking to me, either – I suppose he thinks I need to be comforting Harry, but I know that I don’t need to now.’

‘Why would Harry need comforting?’ Cedric asked, confused.

‘Oh! Of course, you don’t know!’ Her eyes widened in realisation. ‘You’re going to have to talk to him when we’ve finished the ritual – he can’t stop blaming himself for you… well, for your…’

‘My death?’ Cedric finished the sentence for her, shocked that Potter was so affected by it. ‘Well… I’ll have to surprise him, when we’ve succeeded, then, won’t I?’ He frowned at her. ‘Wait – are you missing classes for this as well?’ The thought hadn’t occurred to him before.

She looked up at him apologetically. ‘Well, we would have – but they’ve been cancelled because of you. Dumbledore thought we needed a bit of time to regroup and recover. Or rather, that’s not what he said, but that’s what he meant.’

Cedric nodded mutely. He hadn’t realised just how much his death would have affected the school. What must his parents be going through now?

Forcing the thought from his head, he turned back to the task at hand. ‘I believe it’s your turn to stir?’

~

The constant repetition of stirring and sleeping would have begun to feel like a kind of hypnosis to Hermione, had it not been that Cedric had turned out to be really quite interesting. For the first day, they had both been so exhausted from spending all night awake, researching the potion, that they had barely seen each other, taking it in turns to sleep. Since then, however, they’d spent quite a lot of time sat in the bathroom together, chatting to ease the boredom of waiting for the potion to be ready. Right now, though, she had sent Cedric off to the library to sleep. Alone with her thoughts, she sat down on the tiled floor and contemplated the wall.

Cedric’s personality had been a pleasant surprise for her. During the Tournament, she’d always assumed that he was all looks and no substance, although she had to admit that he was certainly very attractive. In fact, if she could have swapped Viktor for Cedric, she probably would have – bow-legged really wasn’t a good look! She still couldn’t believe that Viktor had been interested in her at all, though. After all, he had girls falling all over him, and he was a lovely person. What he had seen in her she still couldn’t work out! 

‘Stop that,’ she muttered crossly to herself. She was getting as bad as Lavender and Parvati, constantly twittering about boys and make-up. There were much more important things in life than that! And she couldn’t work out  _why_  Cedric and Harry were both so obsessed with Cho – she was just as bad. Viktor really was strange, she mused. Every other boy she knew went for girls like that, the pretty and popular ones. It was a shame that she hadn’t felt any kind of spark for the Bulgarian Seeker, but at least it meant she’d had a chance to experiment. Looking on it rationally, Hermione had decided that a bit of experience couldn’t hurt, and that night in the Astronomy Tower had certainly been fun, even if Viktor wasn’t the one for her. She knew it was shallow to admit it, but she really did want the whole package – brains  _and_  personality.

At that moment, Moaning Myrtle floated in. She’d been around the day they’d started, but Hermione had made such an effort to ignore her that she’d gone away in a huff, and hadn’t been back since. Of course, she couldn’t see Cedric.

‘Still here?’ Myrtle said petulantly. ‘Oh, I know, you won’t talk to me. Nobody talks to me. You’d prefer to make your love potions and moon after some boy than talk to me!’

‘It’s not a love potion! It’s…’ Hermione stopped, realising that telling anybody what she was doing, even Myrtle, was probably not a good idea before they’d finished. ‘I’m not mooning.’ she finished stubbornly.

Myrtle laughed pathetically. ‘Oh, I believe you. Just like Olive Hornby, you are, with your two boyfriends and your perfect little face!’

With that, Myrtle disappeared into the taps, leaving behind a confused Hermione. Of course, she knew she shouldn’t take any notice of the taunts, but a funny feeling had begun to grow in her chest when Myrtle had told her she was mooning. After all, Cedric  _did_  have the whole package, didn’t he?

Hermione shook her head and went to stir the potion. She couldn’t have feelings for Cedric Diggory – that would just be absurd.

~

It was dark in the halls when Cedric returned from the library. He hadn’t got much sleep – with the final day of stirring the potion fast approaching, he was beginning to feel quite nervous, despite his trust in Hermione.

Thinking of her, he grinned. Without her help in this he really would have gone mad. He couldn’t believe he’d never really noticed her before – she was really very pretty, although it was completely natural, rather than the cultivated beauty that Cho and most other girls went for. Hermione was very attractive, but in an unaffected way that meant she probably got overlooked most of the time. Cedric thought back to the Tournament, wondering if he’d seen her at all. He knew she was Potter’s friend, but he had really only thought about how young Potter and his friends seemed.

Now, Cedric realised that Hermione was very mature for her age, and very intelligent too. He’d never been able to think of Cho like that – she was certainly clever, or she wouldn’t have been in Ravenclaw, but she had always seemed very childish to him, for all her gossiping and grooming. He couldn’t ever think of her as anything other than ‘cute’. And that just wasn’t what he was looking for!

Cedric paused at the door to the bathroom, realising what his thoughts were leading to. Hermione was one of those girls who really did have everything you could want. It was a shame that she obviously considered him to be a bit of a dim Hufflepuff. 

With a sigh, he pushed the door open, and went back to stirring, whilst Hermione went to bed.

~

It was the final night before they could do the ritual. The friendly chat that they had kept up before had all but ceased, their nerves beginning to get the better of them, and they simply stirred and watched the potion in silence. 

Trying in vain to distract himself, Cedric turned to Hermione. ‘So, where’s your family from, then?’ he asked, realising that he wasn’t actually sure of her surname. He wondered if she was a Prewitt – that would explain the friendship with the Weasleys, at any rate.

‘Winchester,’ she replied. ‘It felt really strange when I first came to Hogwarts – it’s a lot colder in Scotland than at home! I think I’ll probably live in London when I’ve finished here though. Or maybe Oxford. It would be good to get a degree as well as my NEWTs.’

Cedric frowned. ‘Why Oxford? What’s so special about that?’

Hermione laughed. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t know! It’s the best Muggle university in the country. I’m not even sure if I could get in, but I really want to try. My parents both went to uni in London because it’s better for Dentistry, but I’d prefer to study French, or maybe Medieval Studies…’

Cedric was so surprised that he didn’t really notice whatever else she might have said. She was Muggleborn? How in Merlin’s name did she have such an innate grasp of Potions – and all the other magic he had seen her do?

Hermione had obviously not noticed his expression, because she was still talking. ‘… and I think that Hogwarts really should offer more teaching beyond NEWTs – there’s so many more things to learn than what can be fitted into seven years here!’ She paused, and glanced up at him. ‘Have you thought at all about what you’re going to do when you leave?’

It was at that moment that her voice went hard. She had obviously noticed his still-stunned expression. ‘What’s wrong? Oh, please don’t tell me you have a problem with people who don’t have magic!’

Cedric immediately snapped out of his thoughts. ‘What? No, no – of course I don’t! I was just amazed at how much you knew for someone with no chance to learn at home. And you’re only a Fourth Year.’ His voice softened, and he reached out and touched her shoulder, suddenly desperate to persuade her. ‘Honestly, I think you probably have a better grasp of Potions than most people in my year. Even the ones whose parents let them practise in the holidays!’

Hermione sighed. ‘Sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just used to having to defend myself.’

Her eyes widened in shock as he pulled her into a hug. ‘You have no need to defend yourself against  _anyone_ ,’ he said, surprised how much he wanted her to believe it. She looked up at him, a grateful smile spreading across her face. Instinctively, Cedric leaned down. His lips brushed hers just as a loud pop sounded from behind them. 

Hermione sprang back from him. ‘The potion!’ she cried, rushing into the cubicle. ‘It’s been more than ten minutes!’

Tangled emotions pounding in his chest, Cedric hurried in behind her, to find her frantically stirring the bubbling mixture. ‘Will it be all right?’ he asked worriedly.

‘I think so,’ Hermione mumbled, concentrating on the mixture in front of her. ‘But if we’d left it any longer…’

Finally, she stopped stirring and gave the potion a long look, as if daring it to go wrong again. Her shoulders relaxed as it changed colour a tiny amount. 

‘Hermione…’ Cedric began, hoping he hadn’t scared her with the kiss.

‘Cedric, I…’ she said at the same moment. 

They both stopped, embarrassed. Hermione blushed and Cedric grinned. 

He reached out and touched her cheek. ‘I didn’t mean to surprise you,’ he said softly. 

‘You didn’t,’ she replied, her blush deepening. ‘I mean, you did, but it was all right… it was good, I mean…’

‘Good,’ said Cedric firmly, and this time kissed her properly. He thought he had surprised her again, but after a few seconds she returned the kiss, her tongue grazing his for a moment before they pulled apart.

A helpless smile spread across her face and she gazed up at him wordlessly. Then she yawned, hastily covering her mouth with her hand, mortified. 

‘I think you should get some sleep,’ Cedric advised with a grin. ‘I can take care of the potion.’

She nodded, but he thought he saw her smile disappear as she turned to go. ‘I’ll still be here when you get back, don’t worry,’ he called after her. 

‘Good,’ she said softly, twisting her head back to smile at him again. The door closed behind her, and Cedric was left alone with the bubbling potion. With new hope in his heart, he went back to stirring.

~

Hermione returned just as dawn broke, quietly pushing open the door. ‘Cedric?’ she called softly.

He stepped out from the cubicle. ‘You’re back early,’ he said. ‘The potion’s still fine!’

‘Oh, good,’ she replied, relieved. ‘I went over my calculations before I went to sleep, and I got it wrong! It’s ready now, not at dusk – we have to do the next step, and quickly, before it gets too light.’

Cedric nodded quickly, forgetting all his plans for talking about the night before. ‘What do we have to do?’ he said urgently. 

Hermione’s face was pale. ‘The blood, and then the incantation,’ she answered shakily. 

Cedric reached out and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he reassured her, hoping fervently that he was right. Hermione nodded wordlessly and stepped into the dim light of the cubicle.

‘ _Lumos_ ,’ Cedric muttered behind her. 

‘The runes are all still fine,’ Hermione murmured. ‘Do you remember the incantation?’

Cedric nodded, his face serious.

‘So… are you ready, then?’ she said nervously. 

‘I’m ready,’ he replied firmly, but his knuckles were white as he gripped his wand tightly.

‘I have to go first, then.’ Her voice wobbled a little as she spoke, betraying her apprehension, but she took her wand and held it to her wrist over the cauldron. ‘ _Agnosco vita!_ ’

A single drop of blood fell from her wrist into the cauldron. Hermione paled and looked at Cedric. ‘ _Lumos_ ,’ she whispered, so that he could play his part now.

Cedric nodded slightly, acknowledging her glance at him. He guessed his face was as pale as hers, and his hand was definitely shaking, but he stepped carefully over the runes to the cauldron and held his wrist over the potion. ‘ _Alo vita!_ ’   
A drop of his blood joined Hermione’s. Anxiously, they both peered into the cauldron. For a moment, nothing happened, and then it hissed and turned a deep red. 

Cedric glanced across at Hermione. ‘Is that what’s supposed to happen?’

‘I think so,’ she replied, grabbing the book and hastily flicking the pages. ‘It doesn’t say whether it’s supposed to change colour or not!’

Cedric grimaced, his heart pounding. What in Merlin’s name was he going to do if it hadn’t worked? A hollow sobbing sound interrupted his thoughts. Cedric looked confused; it sounded like it was coming from the pipes!

Hermione looked up at the tall boy. ‘Wait – you said that even the ghosts couldn’t see you, right?’

Cedric frowned, but nodded. ‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Well, all we have to do then is find Myrtle!’ she exclaimed excitedly. She swung open the cubicle door. ‘Myrtle?’

For a moment, there was no response, but then the sobbing grew louder and the weeping girl appeared from one of the sinks. ‘Oh, so you’ve found a boy, have you?’ she said accusingly. ‘I knew it! I knew you were making a love potion! You’re just as bad as the rest of them.’

An amazed grin spread across Cedric’s face. ‘Hermione, you’ve done it!’ With that, he pulled her towards him in a tight embrace, his face red with happiness.

‘Oof!’ she shrieked as he squashed her. 

In the background she could hear Myrtle sulkily floating around and muttering. ‘No time for me, no, not as soon as they find someone better…’

Cedric realised he was squashing her and released her. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to crush you,’ he apologised, still grinning. ‘But I can’t believe that you managed it.’ 

He was about to lean down and kiss her again, when the look on her face made him stop. She was smiling, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Taking it as a sign that she had changed her mind about him, Cedric felt a mix of disappointment and resignation fill his heart. He should have realised that she would want someone who could match her intellect and who didn’t look shocked when they found out she was Muggleborn. Pushing the memory of her soft lips from his mind, he grinned at her instead.

~

Hermione’s heart dropped to her boots as Cedric pulled away from their embrace with a strange look in his eyes. The kiss had obviously just been a throwaway thing to him. She supposed she should have expected it, since he was used to girls who were happy to mess around, but for a little while Hermione had thought that it might have led to something more. She tried to smile at him as he grinned at her.

‘Come on,’ he said impatiently. ‘Let’s go and tell everyone!’

Hermione allowed him to drag her out of the bathroom and into the Entrance Hall, where he stopped. ‘I forgot how early it is,’ he admitted. ‘Or how late, I suppose! Oh well, we’ll just have to wait for a bit. Let’s go and sit on the stairs – I like looking at the lake.’

She followed him out of the front entrance and sat down next to him on the cold stone steps. The sun was just peeking over the trees of the Forest, and the green grass sparkled with dew. The few tulips and daffodils which hadn’t been picked by students were scattered along the lakeside and under the trees, bright in the sunlight. The lake was still and blue under the summer sky. A few birds were still singing their early morning choruses, and after their chaotic night, the whole scene seemed to ooze tranquillity. 

After a while, Cedric looked down at Hermione. ‘I’m so glad I get a second chance at this. I don’t think I can put it into words, just how horrible it was when I thought nobody could see me. Seriously, I owe you a Life Debt.’ 

To Hermione, his words sounded like a final goodbye, although she could see that he meant them. ‘I’m glad I could help,’ she replied sincerely. 

‘I can’t wait to tell my parents about this.’ Cedric went on, his grin widening. ‘They’re going to be ecstatic!’ 

He opened his mouth, obviously about to say something more, but Hermione   
wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand being near him without her disappointment showing. Not wanting to get upset in front of him, she stood up. ‘I’m sure it must be nearly breakfast time now,’ she said abruptly, and turned to make her way up the steps to the Entrance Hall. 

She didn’t see the look of confusion on Cedric’s face as she left, but she heard his footsteps on the steps, catching up with her. He grabbed her arm before she reached the door.

‘Wait for me!’ he said. ‘We…’

Hermione could feel her tears ready to fall, at the thought of losing him. She gulped. ‘Actually, I don’t want to intrude… you have to find your parents, and your friends… so I’ll just leave you to go tell everyone, then,’ she ended hollowly, trying to keep her voice from wobbling. Without waiting for a reply, she turned on her heel and walked quickly away from Hogwarts and down the grassy slope, trying desperately not to sob before she was out of Cedric’s sight. It was only as she reached the lake that the tears overwhelmed her and she covered her face with her hands, convulsing with sobs.

~

Cedric watched her walk from the hall, shocked as he realised just how much he didn’t want her to walk away. She might not want to be with him, but he had to tell her how he felt, or he would never get another chance. At the very least he had to apologise, if his kiss had made her this upset.

‘Hermione, wait!’ he called, but she had already walked out of the hall. Cedric glanced back to where he knew there was a school ready to be shocked by his resurrection, and then quickly turned back to the entrance. Suddenly, he knew which was more important to him. He dashed out of the door and down the slope, heart pounding. 

‘Hermione, please wait!’ he shouted again when he saw her, crouched by the lake. ‘Please don’t be angry with me – I wouldn’t have kissed you if I’d known you didn’t want me to.’

He crouched down beside her, gasping for air, and looked at her. Between her fingers, he could see that her eyes were tightly shut. Gently, he reached out and pulled her hands away from her face. ‘Look at me, Hermione,’ he asked softly. ‘Please?’

Slowly, she opened her puffy eyes, and stared up at him in utter shock. ‘I did want you to – but not if you didn’t mean it!’

With a jolt, Cedric realised his mistake. ‘I thought you didn’t want me,’ he confessed. ‘But I did mean it – I still do!’

Reaching out, he stroked her cheek, leaning closer to her. As her reddened eyes finally met his, Cedric didn’t even need to think. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly, his hand snaking around to lightly stroke her thick hair.

‘You’re beautiful, and intelligent, and kind,’ he murmured. ‘Why would I want to just part ways, after what you’ve done for me?’

‘I thought you just wanted to get back to your life, I suppose,’ Hermione said uncertainly, wiping self-consciously at her sore eyes. ‘And all your friends, and Cho, and … oh, Harry will feel so much better now, and…’

Cedric grinned and placed a finger on her lips. ‘Ssh. I really like you, Hermione. Cho and I… we were never going to be together forever.’

He offered her his hand and hauled her to her feet. ‘I think we’re going to have to do a lot of explaining today, but don’t run off again. Meet me in the Rose Garden later, and we can talk properly.’

She looked at him, still surprised by their kiss. ‘All right. If you’re sure.’ 

He grinned again. ‘I’m sure. I’m irresistible, remember?’ His grin widened into a wide smile when he saw the corners of her lips curve upwards, and he squeezed her hand before letting go. ‘The rose garden at nine, then.’

‘At nine,’ she repeated. ‘Shall we go and shock everyone, then?’

~

The explanations took most of afternoon and half of the evening. Cedric faced tears of joy from his parents, his housemates, and even his teachers (Professor Sprout, in particular). Hermione had been the one to tell Harry, who had then spent most of the afternoon trying to apologise to Cedric, and constantly not being allowed to finish. Both Cedric and Hermione had had to spend hours explaining over and over what he had been told and what she had done, and they knew that in the morning they would quite possibly have to face a suspicious enquiry from Ministry officials. As the evening wore on, Cedric had pulled Cho to one side, and allowed her to cry on his shoulder in relief, but he knew it was only fair to tell her straight away. He wasn’t sure how long it would be before she would speak to him again after his halting explanation, but at least it was done. Even Ron had shaken his hand with a muttered ‘Glad to have you back, mate.’ 

Eventually, after repeatedly trying to excuse himself, Cedric escaped from the crowds of well-wishers, promised his parents that he would be back, and slipped out to the gardens. He strode quickly across the lawn towards the darkened rose garden.

The garden was lit only by the moonlight reflecting off the damp leaves of the roses, and Cedric peered worriedly through the shadowy plants when he could not immediately see Hermione. Perhaps she’d had problems escaping her friends’ questions, he thought, trying not to feel nervous. He sat down on a stone bench, wishing for the thousandth time that he had his wand so he could cast a  _Lumos._

A rustle from the bushes opposite the bench made him look up sharply, to see Hermione slipping off an Invisibility Cloak. 

‘Is that yours?’ he asked, surprised.

‘No, it’s Harry’s,’ she replied. He nodded. If Potter had an Invisibility Cloak, a lot of things suddenly made sense. Seeing Hermione standing uncertainly in front of him, Cedric pushed the thought from his mind, and beckoned to her to sit down next to him. She gave him a small smile and he reached out for her hand. 

‘Listen, Hermione, you’ve done something for me that I don’t know if I can ever fully thank you for.’

She opened her mouth to speak. ‘I…’

‘Wait, let me finish. Just because I owe you a Life Debt doesn’t mean that that’s the only thing we have between us. I really want to get to know you, and I really want to spend time with you. And… well, I hope you wouldn’t mind that?’

The sweet uncertainty in his eyes made her heart beat faster and a flush fill her face. Rather than answering, she leaned in and kissed him, a much more confident kiss than the one they had shared earlier. His tongue flicked around the corners of her mouth and then across her own tongue, and she pushed her fingers through his soft dark hair.

When they finally broke apart she thought her smile would split her face in half. ‘Does that answer your question?’ she asked teasingly, her face hot with emotion and attraction. His lips brushed her forehead in response. 

‘You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,’ he whispered. 

She began to laugh at the clichéd line, although it still sent a pleased shiver through her. ‘How would you know when it’s too dark to see?’

He stroked her hair and her back. ‘I can’t get them out of my head – or any part of you.’ 

Hermione could tell from the laughter in his voice that he knew how cheesy he sounded, and she grinned. ‘Such a charmer – do you come here often?’

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. ‘Only for someone as special as you… there’s only one person I can think of who is that special, and they’re sat right next to me.’

He sounded so serious, despite the cliché in what he had said, that Hermione felt a rush of love for him and kissed him, hard. He responded, pulling gently at her lips with his teeth and then moving his kisses down her neck, pushing her robes away to reveal the pale skin of her shoulder. Her breath came faster as his strong hands caressed her back, and she struggled with the buttons of his shirt, eager to feel his supple muscles beneath her fingers.

Cedric shrugged the shirt off altogether and kissed her lips again, passion overriding his earlier gentleness. 

She ran her hands over his muscular torso. His own hands strayed near to her breasts, but unwilling to do anything she might not like, he quickly moved them back to her hair and shoulders. 

‘Don’t hold back.’ she whispered in his ear, and suggestively brought her hands lower and lower down his back. He drew in breath quickly as her touch stimulated his arousal. Gently, he pulled her robes off and fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. 

She trembled as he touched her breasts and he paused. ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to…’

Her hair had become even bushier than normal in the damp of the garden, and it tickled his bare skin as she leant down to plant a row of tiny kisses across his chest, finishing with one right on his lips.

‘I’m sure,’ she whispered in his ear, not letting him finish his sentence. With a grin, she pulled her shirt off to demonstrate and his hands found her breasts, smooth beneath the calluses of his Quidditch player’s fingers. Her own hands gradually worked their way down his chest, until he wasn’t really aware of where they were anymore, only that he was with her. As her fingers tugged at his trousers, they both slipped off the bench and onto the cold hard earth with a thud. Cedric rolled over so that he was crouching over the top of her, kissing and caressing her with excitement.

Hermione nearly giggled, but the renewed strength of his kiss made her melt inside and completely ignore the damp ground and the bruises she would no doubt have in the morning. She managed to undo his zip, and found him already half-hard with anticipation. His hand between her legs brought the same reaction from her, and she pushed herself against him, desperately kissing his shoulders and back. She was gasping, and getting very close to climax when she scrabbled at his pants. It took him a moment to get the hint, but soon they were both naked and warm against each other. 

Guessing that he wouldn’t actually go for it unless she took the lead, she guided him inside her, and gasped with pleasure as he entered her. Their breath came faster and faster as they pushed against one another, until she arched against him in climax for one perfect moment, and he couldn’t help but do the same. 

They clung to one another, hot and panting on the hard earth, their clothing scattered around them.

~

Cedric awoke as the first rays of morning light tickled his bare back. Hermione was curled against him. Her hair was a tangled bird’s nest, but the peace of her sleeping face seemed almost angelic, especially with the glow that the sunlight cast on her cheek. Their school robes and clothes were jumbled up beneath them. Cedric jumped when he looked appreciatively down Hermione’s naked form, only to find that she seemed to stop somewhere around the waist, until he remembered that she had grabbed it and pulled it over them just before they’d dropped off into an exhausted sleep.

 _Thank Merlin she did_ , Cedric thought. If someone had wandered into the rose garden, they would have been hidden from view. Her practicality made him grin – she’d even known a contraceptive charm that was specifically for use  _after_  the fact.

‘Hermione,’ he whispered, nudging her gently.

She murmured, still half asleep, and rolled over. 

Cedric tried again. ‘Hermione, my lovely, wake up!’

She opened her eyes blearily and sat up, rubbing at them with her fists to clear away the sleep. As her vision cleared she suddenly realised where she was. A blush filled her cheeks and she looked away from him, clearly embarrassed. ‘Cedric, I’m so sorry about…’

He put one finger on her lips. ‘Ssh. I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere. So don’t apologise about last night, or anything else.’

Hermione looked up at him, and saw that he meant it. Her mouth curved into the beginnings of a smile. He pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead tenderly.

~

It was only in the summer holidays, when he had seen Hermione for the fifth time, that Cedric understood what the old man’s words had really meant.

 _‘The one who sees you will help you, the one who helps you will love you, and there is only one who can…’_

She didn’t have to love him to start off with – but by helping him she would grow to do so. When Cedric Apparated to Hermione’s house a week later to meet her parents, he didn’t tell her about it, though. He didn’t need to.

  
  
  



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